


Dread and Destruction

by author_morgan



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, I dont care i just LOVE him, as Deimos, as the protag, god guys i just love him so much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-19
Updated: 2020-01-19
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:54:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22309756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/author_morgan/pseuds/author_morgan
Summary: You left the Cult of Kosmos, now it's time he does too.
Relationships: Alexios (Assassin's Creed)/Reader, Deimos (Assassin’s Creed)/Reader
Comments: 2
Kudos: 64





	Dread and Destruction

THE FEVER BREAKS but you still wake in a cold sweat surrounded by darkness. A dull throbbing in your leg returns. The poisoned arrow leaves its mark on you and the minds of the Cultist. You’re no longer immortal to them –your usefulness has run its course.

Out of the darkness, a flickering light appears and grows brighter –larger and reflects off golden armor. _Deimos_. You’re both relieved and terrified to see him. “They’re going to kill you,” he says and you draw in a deep breath, looking around the prison for a weapon. You couldn’t fight him though, not in this state. Deimos throws down a pack and dark cloak next to you and kneels. You lean back, eyes meeting his –waiting for him to draw his blade to do the Cult’s bidding. “You have to leave,” he tells you.

Your brows knit together. Deimos shoves the hem of your stained _chiton_ up and takes a strip of linen, laying it over the wound on your upper thigh and wrapping it tightly. You can’t help the chill that creeps down your spine at the feel of his rough fingers against your heated skin.

You want to ask why he is going to such lengths to help –deep down you already know, but you want to hear it in his own words. Deimos pulls you off the ground and leads you deeper into the cave, past the Cult of Kosmos’s meeting chamber. The path grows narrower and then turns upward. Star and moonlight filters through a dense canopy covering the hidden entrance. A horse is waiting –your sword and bow already secured to the saddle. You turn back to Deimos. “What about you?” The cult would not let him act without punishment –demigod or not.

Deimos shakes his head. “No questions-” he motions to the horse “-go.”

You and he are kindred souls, bound by misfortune. Trembling, you surge forward, pressing your lips against his. He seizes your waist, drawing you closer. You’ve always been his source of rapture away from the dread and destruction. Your hand caresses the side of his face, following the scar below his eye –you’d put it there yourself years ago. Stepping back, you mount the pale mare and look back over your shoulder. “I’ll find you,” you promise. Fate had always led you back to one another.

* * *

FREE FROM THE Cult’s control, you seek retribution for the years of pain endured under their heel. Freedom makes you see you’d only ever been a puppet in their schemes and Deimos is still their pawn. They’d given you training and praised, called you the daughter of gods, but never once thought what should happen if you went rogue.

Perched in the rafters of a temple –you wait. You’d always been the more patient one. Worshippers rise and flee when he enters. The Cultist kneels, placing a coin at the feet of Plutus in offering. You move in the shadows, then pounce.

Midas slumps against the altar, hand clawing at the open gash on his neck –prayers unheard. Before the gurgling stops, you kick his body over and drive a bronze dagger through his heart. The last thing Midas sees is you smiling with blood on your face. Rising from the slain Cultist, you wipe the blood from the dagger in a stained cloth –not realizing you aren’t alone. The point of a blade digs into your back. “Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you right now.” The voice is familiar. _The Eagle Bearer_.

“Because I just did your work for you,” you remark, glancing down at Midas’s lidless eyes.

“Try again,” Kassandra sneers.

You sigh, dropping the dagger you’d had pressed into her side. “I left the Cult,” you tell her. The Eagle Bearer steps back and you present her with the golden artifact that belonged to Midas. She does not sheath the broken spear though. “And I can help you bring them to their knees.” You’d been hunting Cultist and their accomplices like animals. Midas was the thirteenth to fall on your blade. 

“I saw you with my brother,” she hisses, disbelieving.

Though before you can say anything else a civilian enters the temple and screams after seeing you and Kassandra standing over the corpse of Argos’s banker. Soon after soldiers and guards are shouting in the distance. "Your brother is the only reason I’m alive,” you admit –the thought of Deimos softening your expression. “I suggest we leave quickly.”

Kassandra lowers her spear, reluctant and you flee. “ _Malákas_!” The Eagle Bear curses, giving pursuit before she is found standing over the body of Midas –she doesn’t need another mercenary looking to collect the bounty on her head.

* * *

WAVES ROCK THE _Adrestia_ to and fro. A lit brazier separates you and Kassandra. Since deciding to work together, five more cultists have fallen, but now it is time for answers that did not come from the dying. The Eagle Bearer demands answers and you offer them freely. “Chrysis always took children in pairs,” you explain. “My mother abandoned me the same night yours was told Alexios was dead.” Fate had brought them together, just as Chrysis said the Pythia ordained.

“We grew up together. Trained together. Fought together-” the briefest of smiles flash across your lips “-we were unstoppable.” People feared the very mention of your names, of the things you could do. Together you and Deimos could bring cities to their knees in a night, could shape the tides of war. Still, despite the titles and praise, you were only mortal. “But we were sloppy sometimes and that came with punishment.”

Kassandra clasps her hands together, feels something twist in her stomach. Chrysis will die for the things she’d done. You glance down at the scars on your arms then look to the heavens. “We were taught to expect pain." _The world is pain_. At first, it was lashes, then brands –if a Child of Kosmos ran out of room for a mark they were discarded.

Though for Deimos and you, the Cult had to become creative in their punishments. A brand did nothing to someone who did not cry out in agony or beg for release. "What they found is they could hurt us more by hurting each other.” The first time Deimos let a target escape their grasp, Okytos the Great had carved lines into your back and rubbed salt in the wound. Deimos swore he’d kill Okytos for that.

“What is he like?” Kassandra asks. Her little brother is a stranger to her.

You shrug. “Irascible and stubborn mostly.” That tended to be the temperament of most men though, but Deimos is different. He brought the wrath of gods and was like a rock rising from the sea. “Even the Cultist fear him.” He was a puppet for the Ghost of Kosmos, but sometimes he tested the length of his leash. There was a time when both you and he commanded the Sages and Adepts.

“He’s always been different with me, though,” you admit. There had always been a certain degree tenderness in his touches and gaze. Even his words were not harsh. “Softer.” Is the word you use to describe the Deimos no one but you know.

The Eagle Bearer’s face falls. “You love him.” She’s seen that type of expression before many times in her travels. It is the look in a woman’s eyes as she sends her husband to war.

You look away. “I love the man he could be. I will help you hunt down every cultist crawling over the Greek world-” you rise to your feet. “-but know we’re fighting for different people, Kassandra.” You return below deck, hoping the memories would let you know peace for one night. 

* * *

AT THE BACK of the cave is a man garbed in silver and gold armor. You recognize him at once, a few seconds later the Eagle Bearer does as well. Kassandra strides forward, but you grip onto her arm, pulling her back to the cave’s entrance. “Let me go alone,” you whisper. Deimos can kill you if that is what the Cult wishes, but Kassandra needs to live.

“Have you lost your fucking mind?” She hisses. “I can’t leave you with him!” Your harsh glare makes her reconsider and alas she turns back, returning to the _Adrestia_.

You descend into the dim cave. Footfalls silent. “Deimos,” you breathe, pushing back the hood of your cloak. Almost two years have passed since you’d fled execution. Now fate brings you together again.

In two large strides, his hand wraps around your throat, pushing you back against the rock. “You left me,” he shouts –voice echoing deep in the darkness.

You wrap a hand around his wrist –terrified of the moment when he decided to squeeze. Despite his strength, his face looks thin –tormented. Dark circles ring his eyes. The Cult chips away another piece of him –of his resolve. “You helped me leave,” you tell him, breathing shallow.

His face twists, but he drops you and steps back –chest heaving in sync with yours. He’s dreamt of killing you for betraying him, leaving him, but all it takes is one look and he can’t do it. “They said you abandoned me,” he grits out.

Rising, you take a step toward him. “I didn’t.” Your fingers brush over the scar on the back of his right hand. You can leave too.“ He still won’t look at you, but he doesn’t move when you slip your hand into his. "Come with me,” you whisper. “The Cult has used us. Broken us.” You had only been able to see the truth after leaving and though you were still on a path of vengeance, it was better than being a puppet. “We can be whole.”

Deimos shakes his head, chuckling and turns back to face you. There was no going back, no leaving this life. “Not after the things we’ve done,” he says.

You let his hand go. "But do we not deserve the chance?” You ask, reaching out to touch the scar below his eye.

He knocks your hand away, knowing your touch would ruin him and bring more pain. “I will not listen to your lies,” he snarls.

“Alexios.” He lashes out, shoving you. Something in you back cracks as you hit the cave wall. “Don’t use that name!” Deimos roars, shoulders shaking.

You sit up, closing your eyes and ignoring the pain. “It’s who you are,” you breathe, hands shaking. Your whole body feels as though it is shaking. You open your eyes. Deimos is crouched down before you, dark eyes full of pain and anger, but there is still a glint of the gentleness you’d known before. Your breath catches and takes that as a queue, kissing you.

You hesitate, mind racing. He may have been about to kill you. _One last kiss before death_. The cold bite of iron never comes. You lean into him and his anger subsides. His hands run down your arms, finding new scars. “Where have you been?” He asks.

“Searching,” you shrug, then the briefest of smiles appears on your lips and makes Deimos want to kiss you again. “To discover who I truly am.” You reach out toward the scar on his cheek again, this time he does not resist. 

He leans into the touch, unable to admit to himself that he’d missed this. “I cannot leave,” he utters. You already knew that, though. "If they find out you’re alive, they’ll kill you.” You rest your forehead against his.

You nod, knowing well how the Cult of Kosmos operates. "I would expect nothing less.” Then something akin to fear appears in your eyes. "But what if they gave you the order?” You ask.

Deimos turns his head, swallows hard. “I-” he hesitates – the answer should have been easy, but it wasn’t. “I couldn’t,” he whispers. The words should have brought you relief, but they did not.

You lift your hand to his cheek, bringing his troubled gaze back to you. “We are bound by fate,” you murmur, leaning forward. He grabs the back of your neck, closing the distance between you. You brace one hand on his breastplate, the other tangles in his hair. His kiss is bruising –a punishment in itself. Pulling away, you run your thumb over his lips. When you kiss him, it makes his heart ache and his body go weak. “The gods will always bring us back together,” you tell him as you part, hands caressing both sides of his face.

You both rise. He has been away too long, the Cult will begin searching for him. Deimos grips onto your hands before you can leave the cave. “Stay out of my way, please.” He doesn’t want to be faced with a decision he’d grow to regret.

You smile and Deimos knows a piece of your former self persists. “Only if you stay out of mine." 


End file.
